Newsletter: Summer 2007

Dressed in the "hunting outfit" of a young male courtier of the Heian period (794-1185), his loose ponytails, round face, and small features indicate that he is still a boy and has not yet had his coming-of-age cere­mony. In contrast to the garb of Buddhist deities, primarily inspired by Indian and Chinese prototypes, male Shinto deities almost always wear traditional Japanese clothing and are usually, in both painting and sculpture, portrayed in the guise of nobility. Some traces of polychrome, perhaps added at a later date, remain on the stat­ue's eyebrows, hair, and robes. The figure, which may date to the eleventh or twelfth century, is carved from a single block of wood, with only the hands, now missing, carved separately and then attached. Figures of Shinto deities are often made from shinboku, or "divine trees," such as pine, cedar, and cypress, very rare or old trees, or trees that have been struck by lightning. Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, is translated as "the way of the gods." Whether the rituals and beliefs of Shinto had a name prior to the importa­ tion of Buddhism is not known. Buddhism, which arrived in Japan in the sixth centu­ ry, brought with it the Chinese writing system used to communicate its teachings; as a result, early Japanese authors relied heavily upon the language of Buddhism to convey information about indigenous beliefs in their texts. The Japanese reading for the Chinese character shin is kami, which is typically translated as "deity" or "deities."Kami are believed to inhabit objects in nature such as rivers and trees, or ritual objects such as mirrors, and although the kami themselves are invisible, the objects they inhabit can be worshiped as visual manifestations of divinity. The worship of kami figures in shrines seems to have begun with and been influenced by the introduction of Buddhism; until that time Shinto rituals were generally carried out on temporary sites. Once shrines began to be built in the Buddhist temple complexes, however, figural representations of kami, such as this example, were housed within.